[The first time he saw her was one evening in which she appeared to him dressed in dark clothing, veiled like a modest moon hiding itself behind the satin of clouds. Le bruit, that unique mode which in Parisian society took the place of truth, told him contradictory things about her, that she suffered a cruel widowhood, but not of a husband, but of a lover, and that she glorified that loss to reaffirm her sovereignty over it. Some whispered to him that she concealed her face because she was a beautiful Egyptian, come from Morea.

Whatever was the truth, at the mere movement of her dress, at the slight turn of her steps, at the mystery of her hidden face, Roberto's heart was hers...

...But suddenly, and on that same evening of their first encounter, the veil fell for an instant from her brow and he was able to glimpse under that sickle moon the luminous abyss of her eyes. Two loving hearts looking at each other say more things than all the tongues of this universe could say in a day--Roberto flattered himself, sure that she had looked at him, and, in looking, had seen him.]

--Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before

---------

"Good times for a change. See, the luck I've had Can make a good man turn bad.